Heaven
by Majenta
Summary: Heero and Duo romance and angst, ah yes, how original


Title: Heaven

Author: Majenta

Contains: Yaoi, angst, sap 

Pairings: 1x2/2x1

There was a certain peace in coming back to the colonies, maybe even a sick peace. Duo pulled his hat from his tangled hair and tossed it onto the table, leaning forward on his elbows to stare out the window. What was it that he had said long ago, on earth? That was it, the moon looked like a graveyard from this close. It made him feel like one of the dead, wrapped up in so much silvery moon dust like a death shroud. He shook his head a little carelessly and pulled the elastic from his hair, massaging his scalp. It fell into clumps and tangles around his face; the scent of gunpowder was still there. He hadn't had time for a shower in almost two weeks. What a joke. Life is getting up to wash your face and hands so they were clean to wrap around a gun. 

Heero was still outside, the thought hit him suddenly and he looked back to the open door. He paused in the doorway, leaning against one arm to watch the boy killer out in the moonlight, bright like day. His face tipped up, his lashes caught the light and made him silver and ice, like the moon itself. You are the death shroud in which I wrap myself. Duo wiped a bit of dirt from his cheek and came forward into the brilliant moonlight, calling out to him. "Heero."

He didn't turn for a moment longer, only slowly closed his eyes and lowered his head. He shivered in the soft cold of the colony night. Duo came forward with the authority to lay a warm hand on Heero's shoulder, giving him warmth enough to cease shivering. He did not turn to look still, but kept his eyes closed shut. "One of those nights, huh?"

His voice sounded like dry leaves thrown in a fire. Why Duo knew the sound, he wasn't sure. The scars on Heero's bare arms shone milky white like the color of sickness in the pale light of the moon. It looked as if he were sewn together with bits of a spider's web and held up by the bright, searing light of midnight. He slid his hand, caked in dirt and burned at the tips of his fingers from the gun that had almost backfired, onto the small of Heero's back. 

"If we were to die now," Duo said helplessly, but with an air of saucy exuberance, "What would be your last thought?"

"At last," Heero said quietly, then shook his head, "Just kidding." But he wasn't. "Maybe I'd think about you. Maybe I'd think about this light off the moon and how it makes my body look like a broken doll, glued back together."

"I'd think about you, if I died now," Duo said honestly, thinking it better to avoid the emptiness in Heero's eyes. "I'd worry if I died without you and left you behind."

"I can take care of myself."

"I know. Jesus, I know that." He sighed, "But I'd feel empty anyway, until you came back to me."

"I _am_ a broken doll," Heero whispered. "I don't know why you'd want to keep me here, so used up."

"I never really cared what you thought," Duo chuckled, "I never agreed with you on anything. It doesn't matter anyway, but you filled up an empty part of me."

Heero was quiet for a long time, he had heard this before but it never bothered him to hear it again. It was like a song coming back to him, full of old music that stirred him and made his heart hurt like poison. But this pain was a good one, one that he needed to feel in the most secret part of him. He said nothing. 

Duo sighed and led his hand fall, sliding it into his pocket, "Would you miss me if I died?"

"Maybe I'd die too, I don't know." Heero kicked at the ground with the toe of one shoe. It was strange, to see him make the childish and human gesture. "Maybe I'd die because I'd stop caring if I lived or not."

"I thought you already didn't care," Duo pushed on, his heart beating a little faster. Heero took a step away from him, then another into the cold silence. Yes, cold, the temperature was dropping and the dusty silver moon shone down at them and frowned with its skull face like a dead thing. 

"You think that, huh?" Heero's voice was very quiet. "But then again you did say that we never agreed on anything. Besides, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you that I keep living just for you. You'd think it was bull, wouldn't you? Because you think you know me, and maybe you do, better than I know myself anyway." He closed his eyes, "Maybe you'd say I was lying when I told you that you smelled like the sea; that my heart, little and shriveled as it is, can still beat."

Duo was quiet for a long time, listening to the echo of Heero's voice that was not an echo at all, but rather a slow desperate ringing in his ears. He came forward and leaned down, taking up a handful of dust on one fist, then letting it fall. There was no wind and it did not blow away. "Sometimes I think the moon's going to crush us when we stand here. Maybe it's made of something secret," he let his voice drift, then continued, "And the dust will drift down to us. I'll collect it all and bring it to you, if it would make you happy."

Heero laughed, it was the sound that the dead make. "Do you know what makes me happy?"

"Nothing." It came out before he knew that he did not mean it. He lay his hands on Heero's shoulders and drew him back against his chest, resting his chin in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. His skin was as cold as the light of the moon. Heero trembled, then lay a hand on his stomach. "I feel sick." His voice was sad now without really being sad at all. It was such a distant sadness and only Duo could have heard it and known it for what it really was. 

"Do you want me to take you inside?"

"Alright."

Duo slid his hands from Heero's shoulders and took one of his hands in a loose fist. Heero did not look at him still, but only at his feet or at the moon with a wondering sadness that could have brought tears. But no one saw them and no one cried. Duo closed the door behind them and stepped into the chilly darkness the house was settled in. Heero sat down at the kitchen table and leaned forward on his elbows, looking out the window. "Would you be sad if I died, Duo?"

"I told you," Duo did not smile because his heart ached, nor did he look Heero's way. "I'd die too. Didn't you hear me?"

"No," Heero admitted, "I'm sorry." He paused for a long time. "We'd stay together after we died, and I even think we'd be happy. I've never been happy."

"Liar."

Heero lowered his head, "Maybe I am a liar. I could tell you that you make me happy, but even then the happiness makes me sad because I cannot keep it." Heero's head swam. He wanted to put his arms around Duo's waist and bring him close but it seemed impossible. Duo would have to come to him first, but he probably wouldn't. He didn't know what Heero wanted and he couldn't tell him. 

"I'd-" Duo's voice faltered and failed him, then he began again. "I'd like to take you somewhere beautiful someday. I think the moon is beautiful, but not this close. I'm afraid it'll crush you, you look so small beneath it."

"I'd go with you," Heero said after a long moment. Then he sighed, hanging his head, "I'm tired, I'm going to bed."

"Do you ever really sleep?" Duo asked quietly, "Sometimes I don't think I do."

"You're not acting like yourself tonight," Heero said shortly. "And you'd tell me that I don't know who you really are, but you're wrong. I know who you are. I know you enough to love you."

"I love you, Heero." Duo's voice caught in his throat again, this time it broke. Heero paused from where he stood in the doorway. Duo hadn't noticed that he had risen from the table. He turned lowly and lowered his eyes. 

Duo walked swiftly to his side and pulled Heero against his chest like he did some nights, feeling how thin and broken he was, how much he trembled through clothes that did not cover enough of his scars to make him look as human as those around him. Heero closed his eyes and let Duo stroke his back with dirty hands, loving the feel of it anyway. Loving the feel of it, did he really love anything at all? The empty place that Duo spoke of, the one that Heero filled, Heero didn't think that his emptiness was ever filled because it was all that made him up. And the shrunken heart he spoke of was nothing but that darkness that he saw when he slept. He clung to Duo's back, so small just like him. Both of us, he thought, so young and fragile. 

I may be empty inside, but there is a place in me that you fit perfectly. There is a place for you in my emptiness. When I see darkness, you may not lift it, but at least you're there with me. 

"You can't stop the emptiness from filling me up," Heero whispered, "But you can hold me and keep that darkness from killing me."

Duo led him through the dark hallway and into the moonlit bedroom. It was not a room where they really rested, even thought they slept. It was a room where they lay in the darkness and held each other, trying not to fall. Sleep was not rest, it was dark quiet. 

"Sometimes I watch you sleep," Duo said, pushing Heero down by the shoulders onto the bed and unlacing his shoes. "And I pretend that you feel safe and good inside. I think you look like an angel."

Heero felt tears rise up in his throat. He had not cried for years, not out loud anyway, but Duo made him want to cry sometimes. They way he looked at him in the dark, eyes shining, it made him want to cry. When a tear slid down his cheek, Duo wiped it away with one soiled hand. His tangled hair fell around them like a cloak, blocking out the brightness of the moon and surrounding them in a warm darkness that could be shattered just as easily as it was made. 

"I may be broken," Heero whispered, "But I'll never stop loving you."

Shuddering, Duo lay a hand over his eyes and caught his own tears before turning back to face the boy who lay so small and fragile beneath him. He lay down beside him and pulled Heero against his chest, stroking his hair. 

Tangled together, still dressed and bathed in the cold light of the moon, they lay silent. Tomorrow, Duo thought, we'll be called out again and my hands will be just as stained and cold as they are now. But at least they won't be empty. 

Someday I'll take you away to a place where the sun spills over you and makes you beautiful in a new way, a different way than that of the bright moon. I'll take you to a place within me that will lift the darkness from you and I will fill you with the light I have hidden inside myself. And I'll watch you walking just a bit ahead of me in the sun, smiling for the first time and loving me still. Loving me. 

We may not be in heaven, you and I, but we are in each other's arms. And maybe this hell is worth all of its sad darkness. I know that when I do die, I won't die alone. You'll be there beside me, like I knew you always were before, like you are now. 

I can't fill you the way you fill me and make me complete from the inside, but I can keep you near me until you are as warm as I am. Until you don't have tears left to fall.

Heero stirred against Duo's chest and Duo kissed his soft hair, letting tears slip from his cheeks into the brown locks. He pulled back just a bit and looked into Heero's face, the bruises around his temples from wearing a helmet that was too tight for him.

"We're not angels, we're not in heaven," he whispered. "But I'll love you forever."

In his sleep, Heero's mouth curved to smile and the tension dropped away from his expression. That smile, for one moment; it was the most beautiful thing that Duo had ever seen.

Yes, someday, you and I will be together someplace beautiful, and we will be free. Still, trapped in this life with no cure for darkness, there are no chains for love. It is love that keeps me sane, love that might just give me wings. And if it does, I'll take you in my arms and carry you away.

Until then, stay with me, stay with me . . .

In a dream, they walk in sunlight together, the two pilots, and all of their wounds are gone.

"I will never leave you," Duo whispers, "Even as we can never stay in this place."

Heero shrugs, the smile he never saw in life coming to meet his lips. "But when we sleep, we can dream here. Here I can tell you, even if I never do in life, that I was happy once when I lived. It was when I was with you."

In his sleep, Duo wept and Heero awoke to kiss the tears away. We are no angels, but maybe we are already in heaven.


End file.
